Summer 2018 Preview

Introduction

With only a week or two left in the Spring 2018 season it’s time to start looking forward to the Summer 2018 anime season. So far I’ve added five new series and three sequels to my PTW (Plan to Watch) list, but more may be added by the time the season begins.

Along with these eight Summer 2018 anime, My Hero Academia season 3 will be continuing with its second cour and Boruto will also be continuing since it’s a year-round series.

New Series

Back Street Girls is the first new series on my Summer 2018 PTW list. It’s a comedy about some Yakuza members who are given the choice to either honorably commit suicide, or get sex changes and form an idol group. They choose the latter.

Just based off the short description of this anime it seems like it’s going to be similar to both Cromartie High School and Hinamatsuri so I don’t really see how it could be bad. It may not be the best anime of the season, but I have my hopes up.

The next new series is called Happy Sugar Life and appears to simply be “Yandere: the anime.” It’s about a teenage(?) girl who takes care of a younger girl (maybe her sister?) until that girl goes missing (or is kidnapped) one day.

From the trailer it’s unclear to me whether the main character was already a psychotic yandere or if the disappearance of the younger girl is the trigger. I don’t really think this anime will be that good, but neither was The Future Diary, and that gave us the #1 yandere: Yuno Gasai.

Harukana Receive is a sports anime about beach volleyball. Based on the trailer, it looks like it will have a decent amount of fan service, but I expected that anyway from a beach volleyball anime. However, it seems like it’ll be an actual anime and not a joke like Keijo!!!!!!!! was.

Sports anime aren’t really my thing, but this one looks nice and will hopefully do a better job at being a sports anime than Two Car did because that was really a slice of life anime disguised as a sports anime. If sports anime about cute girls isn’t for you, there’s also a new season of Free! coming this Summer.

So, I’m disappointed in myself for even adding this next anime to my PTW list, but I needed to have at least one isekai for the Summer 2018 season. Out of the three isekai I saw for the season, How Not to Summon a Demon Lord seemed like it would be the least terrible.

The basic plot is that the protagonist is summoned to a video game world as with the appearance of his character, but then there are two girls there who claim to be the ones who summoned him. They then both cast spells on him to make him their slave, but the spells are reflected back.

This means the two girls are now the protagonists slaves.

I know, it sounds like it’s going to be bad, and it probably is. However, in my defense, based on the descriptions of the other two isekai I saw for this season, this one seemed like it had the most potential to be at least somewhat entertaining. The others were pretty bland.

The final new series I have on my PTW list for now is Jashin-chan Dropkick, a slapstick comedy about a gothic lolita character who summons a demonic lamia and then is unable to send her back. I’m expecting this series to be fairly decent since it reminds me of things such as Gabriel DropOut.

I don’t really see how it could be below a 5/10, and at the highest I think it could be a 7/10, so my early prediction for this anime is 6/10. We’ll see how close that is in another three months.

Sequels

While new series are always wildcards, sequels are much more predictable (or at least they should be). The first sequel on my list is One Room 2nd Season, which is the second season of the anime short One Room if you couldn’t guess.

One Room was a pretty uncomfortable anime since it uses a first person perspective, but at least the episodes were short and therefore bearable. I’m not expecting much from the second season, but since it’s a short I figured it’s not much of a waste of time even if it’s bad.

Overlord III Release Date

Overlord III, the sequel to Overlord and Overlord II, is probably going to be pretty decent just like the seasons that came before it. I’m hoping that this third season actually ties together the events of seasons one and two, because they didn’t really have anything to do with each other.

The entire major plot point at the end of season one was completely ignored in season two and the series mainly followed what appeared to be side arcs instead. If those side arcs can be tied back into the plot from season one, then I think this third season could be the best one yet.

The final series currently on my PTW list for Summer 2018 is Attack on Titan Season 3, the sequel to Attack on Titan seasons one and two. I sort of know where the plot of the series is headed, but I’m still looking forward to the continuation of this series.

I believe season 3 is going to be 2-cour again like season one which is something I’m looking forward to. I liked how season one was long enough to have arcs that felt complete when compared to the layout of season two which felt much more episodic.

In season two, since it was only 12 episodes long, it felt like there was some big reveal every single episode. I prefer when there’s a buildup over a couple of episodes between each big reveal because it just makes for a more interesting viewing experience.

I’ve also heard that this season will focus more on Captain Levi. The first season was about the main three characters, and the second season shifted the focus more to some of the side characters. I’m interested to see how the story will be told from Levi’s perspective.

Finally, will we get to see the Scout Regiment make it to Eren’s basement this season? Place your bets now.